In recent years, various types of recreational activities have become increasingly popular, including biking, skiing, snow boarding, camping and boating. People engaging in these activities often must drive from the city where they live to a remote location where they can engage in their chosen recreation. Because these activities all require some type of equipment, participants are faced with the challenge of transporting this equipment to its point of use.
Numerous rack systems have been developed to facilitate transportation of recreational equipment. These racks are typically secured to some location on a vehicle and provide attachment points for the various items of sporting gear. Probably the most common style of rack system mounts to the roof of a vehicle. The fundamental components of such racks are a pair of spaced-apart parallel crossbars supported above the roof of the vehicle by towers disposed at each end of each crossbar. The crossbars provide a standard base to which various accessories are attached to accommodate different loads.
Because most people only use their racks intermittently, they are faced with the problem of what to do with their racks when not in use. Although most racks offer some type of lock, leaving the rack on the vehicle when it is not being used to carry loads creates a risk that the rack will be stolen. In addition, the rack creates additional aerodynamic drag and noise. Some users do not like to clutter the roof of their vehicle with a rack when it is not required. Therefore, many users are faced with the problem of attaching and removing the rack from the vehicle.
With many existing rack systems, installation and removal of the rack is rather difficult. In particular, the attachment mechanism for some racks utilizes many pieces which must be carefully assembled to secure the rack to the roof of the vehicle. Other racks must be precisely positioned on the vehicle to accommodate the particular load to be carried or the structure of the vehicle to which they are attached. For instance, the towers may only fit in one location because of the particular curvature of the roof. In some cases, the accessories attached to the crossbars must also be disassembled from the crossbars to permit the rack to be removed from the roof. For these reasons and others, attaching a roof rack to a vehicle and properly adjusting it to the correct position can be a time consuming and frustrating operation for the user.
With the above problems in mind, it is an object of the present invention to provide a roof rack which can be easily mounted to and removed from a vehicle.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a roof rack that is easily remounted to the same position on the vehicle.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a tower assembly that can accommodate roofs of various curvatures.
One more object of the present invention is to provide a roof rack with the above advantages that generates reduced aerodynamic drag and wind noise.